


Collingwood Noir

by orphan_account



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, MFMM Year of Tropes, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-23 19:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12514356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Melbourne, 1946. A person from Phryne's past misuses details of their shared history in his debut detective novel. Phryne is not pleased. My entry for the October trope.





	1. The Reading

**Author's Note:**

> So it turns out I couldn't let a month go by without some attempt at the trope challenge. Not sure how this one is going to go over, but should at least prompt some interesting conversation...

**Melbourne, 1946**

“Am I too late?” Phryne asked the proprietor as she entered the small ante-chamber of the St. Kilda bookshop. 

“Not at all ma’am. We’re just underway,” he replied in hushed tones, handing Phryne a printed program and extending his arm towards the back of the shop.

Further inside, a row of young men in uniform stood at attention near a podium. Rows of folding chairs were set of for the audience, including Mrs. Dot Collins. One young man mounted the short steps of the riser with military precision, placed his manuscript on the surface and began to read in a slow, steady voice, “Memoirs of Wartime. The Battle of the Java Sea”. 

“Are they all to be this dour, Dot?” Phryne whispered, joining her friend. 

“Writing helps the servicemen recover. It’s a worthy cause,” Dot stated plainly. Phryne could almost hear the unspoken “Miss” at the end of her protégé’s sentence, even after all these years. 

“I’m more than happy to support the cause Dot, but I’m not certain why I need to be among the audience for their self-expression.” 

“You’ll enjoy this one,” Dot answered, pointing at the third listing on the program. “It’s a detective novel. _Collingwood After Dark_. It’s going to be published.” 

“Interesting,” Phryne mused, scanning the title and author name. _Patrick O’Connell_ , she mused, examining the line of soldiers yet to speak. It was a common enough name, and the young men so similar in their dress and bearing. It couldn’t be him. At the very least it wasn’t likely. 

Twenty minutes later Sgt. O’Connell took the podium. Five minutes into his reading, Phryne changed her mind — Patrick O’Connell was indeed her Paddy. She hadn’t laid eyes on him since 1929. 

Ten minutes into his reading her pride and delight in his literary accomplishment had soured to disappointment. In the novel Paddy had styled himself a hard-boiled private detective who trusted no one but his own private code. Fair enough. But then he depicted Jack — very loosely disguised — as a corrupt cop on the take — and painted Phryne — even less loosely disguised — as a femme fatale working both sides of the law. The prose was wooden, the content appalling. 

A telling detail in the novel moved Phryne from disappointed to deeply upset: 

> _“The swallow pin,” Pat said, eyes blazing. Fran was disheveled, laying wantonly on the bed. “You hocked the swallow pin I gave you for a bottle of rotten booze. I wanted to marry you.”_
> 
> _“You thought that pin meant something, Pat!” Fran spat. “I could never love a man like you.”_

As Paddy’s reading ended and the next soldier took his place, Phryne attempted to make eye-contact from her seat. Paddy assiduously avoided the same. 

Later, during the question and answer session, a studious young man asked each of the authors if their manuscripts were fact or fiction. “True fact,” Paddy — well, Patrick — answered with a practiced world-weariness. “War had nothing on the streets of Collingwood,” he boasted. “At least in the Pacific, we knew who the bad guys were.” 

Phryne held her tongue during the public exchange, but followed Paddy to the street at the end of the event, intending to have a word with him privately. 

By the time she made her way through the crowd to the sidewalk, Paddy had loosened his uniform jacket, lit a cigarette, and attracted a throng of acolytes. “Can’t trust women,” he scowled. “Any of them. That part of my book is completely true. I let one break my heart once. Long ago. I was a sucker. Never again.” 


	2. The Writing

“Let me see if I have this right,” Mac stated, swirling the whiskey around her glass. “A man you knew rather briefly as a young boy, grew up, saw untold horrors as a soldier in this most recent terrible war of ours, then returned home, alive, to write a piece of fiction…” 

“Deeply misogynistic fiction,” Phryne interrupted. 

“Fine. Deeply misogynistic fiction,” Mac repeated, “with characters loosely based on you and Jack, and this upsets you.” 

“Yes,” Phryne replied. “It does.” She paused, fingering the swallow pin on her scarf. “And don’t blame the war.” 

“I blame war for many things, Phryne. I’m quite done with war.” 

They sat quietly with their drinks — at odds, yes, but companionably so — in the parlor of the house that had replaced Wardlow. Phryne and Jack had moved to a smaller home in the same area of St. Kilda after Mr. Butler retired in 1934. When the war led to a housing shortage, Mac had joined them, occupying her own suite of rooms on the lower floor. Evenings like this — the comforts of a long and honest friendship always close at hand — had ensured that she never left. 

“It’s foolish,” Mac said after a time. 

“The novel? Paddy doesn’t think so. He thinks it’s going to be a great success.” 

“No. Your response.” Mac swallowed the last bit of whiskey in her tumbler and stood up from her chair, as if her firm pronouncement were the last word on the subject. 

“You’re missing the point, Mac.” 

“Clearly, Phryne,” she replied, now exasperated. “You don’t normally give this sort of thing the time of day.” 

“What sort of thing?” Jack asked, entering from the main hallway and joining Phryne on the chaise. 

“Hello darling,” she replied, taking his hand in hers and greeting him with a brief kiss. “The business about Paddy’s book. Mac thinks I’m over-reacting.” 

“Hello darling,” Mac echoed in Jack’s direction. “Drink?” 

On his nod, Mac busied herself at the drink cart, noting that the room had fallen silent behind her. A turn of her head confirmed that Phryne had buried herself in Jack’s embrace. As confounding as it was to Mac, Phryne truly was upset. Mac knew when to make a hasty retreat. She caught Jack’s eye, placed his drink on the side table within reach, and bid him a silent good night. 

“Mac’s right,” Jack said quietly. “This isn’t like you. You usually ignore men like this, or bowl right over them.” 

“I know,” Phryne answered. “Yet I can’t seem to shake it.” 

Jack reached for his drink. “You still see the boy.” 

Phryne nodded. “And I can’t fathom how I hurt him so deeply. I solved his case, reunited him with his brother. He proposed to me, remember?” A glow spread across Phryne’s face as she remembered the joy of that past evening, her features softening in an instant. “When I thought of him, he was happy.” 

Jack watched as Phryne’s hand was drawn to the swallow pin on her scarf once again. “I haven’t seen you wear that in some time,” he said softly. “When I think of that night I don’t remember Paddy at all. I only remember how happy we were.” Jack pulled her close. “How happy we are.” 

* * *

In another part of town, Paddy O’Connell drank his own whiskey in silence. His bare room, rented by the week, containing little more than a single bed, a flimsy wooden desk, and battered typewriter. 

A handwritten note from Phryne lay on the desk. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw it out, but couldn’t bring himself to re-read more than a few words — “never meant to hurt you” — “can we talk” — “call anytime”. 

She saw him as a boy. He hated that boy. The boy that could only watch. 

Watch from the kitchen, glass of lemonade in hand, as the Inspector fastened the swallow pin to her scarf. Watch as she looked at the Inspector like he was the most magnificent man she had even seen. Watch as she took the Inspector by the hand and led him upstairs, instead of coming to join the rest of them in the kitchen. Hear her apologies later that night — apologies he knew she didn’t mean. Learn, weeks later, that she had left Australia for England, with the Inspector close behind. Understand, finally, as the months dragged on, that she would never wait for him to grow up — would never love him as he had loved her. 

Paddy lit a cigarette and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into his typewriter. 

Waiting for the words, he picked up Phryne’s note in his left hand and touched the lit end of his cigarette to the thick cardstock. It didn’t ignite. He tossed it to the floor in disgust and let his cigarette smolder on the bare table. 

He placed his hands over the keys. Pat O’Connell, P.I. emerged on his page, prowling the untamed streets of Collingwood, trusting no one. Paddy heard the crisp metallic sound of the keys striking each blow against the page. It was the only thing he loved.


End file.
